EQ Journal

Category

Negative Cost Selling Solar Arrays

School Board Pays Negative Cost for new Solar Panel Installations Rex Parris, Mayor of Lancaster, California doesn’t like to lose. It must come from his class-action lawyer background where he won almost $1 billion in claims for his clients and himself. Three years ago he decided to make the city where the sun (almost) always [...]

Why Businesses (Really) Fail

And Why Even Mighty IBM Can’t Forget the Basics Below are some data published by BusinessWeek on why businesses fail. I’ll bet you that the top five reasons (too much debt, inadequate leadership, poor planning, failure to change and inexperienced management) are in fact related to number six on their list: not enough revenue; i.e., [...]

Things Every Tech Startup Needs to Know about Self-Capitalization

By Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (Civil), M Eng-Sci, PhD Abstract In the five year period leading up to 2010, approximately 91.6% of all tech startups in the US were self-funded or bootstrapped, 8.1% were Angel-backed and just 0.3% were VC-funded. How to self-fund (self-capitalize or bootstrap) new tech enterprises is the subject of this [...]

Generation Q

Film by prototypeD.org, Directed by Janak Alford My name is Janak Alford. I am an Architect, a hacker, an artist and a filmmaker. I run not-for-profit, Ottawa-based, underground film studio, prototypeD.org. About eight months ago and after reading an early version of his manuscript, I was captivated by the world of Quantum Entity created by [...]

Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame Acceptance Speech

By: Bruce M Firestone, Founder, Ottawa Senators Date: June 6, 2012 Thank you for inviting me here tonight. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here with my family, friends, colleagues, Sens fans and executives as well as Board of Directors from the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame. I got word that [...]

70 Ways to Raise Bootstrap Capital

There are certainly hundreds or even thousands of clever techniques entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs are using to raise cheap/free capital, aka bootstrap capital. No list is ever going to be complete. But here is our summary of what people are doing these days to self-capitalize their new products/services/enterprises. If you would like to add to our [...]

Finding Bootstrap Capital Where You Least Expect It

(How one company made $800,000 from their below market office lease) Entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs work their magic every time they launch a new company/product or service with little or no funding. They’re amazingly good at finding niche opportunities and exploiting them to raise cash. Here’s one I learned from Rod Bryden who was on the [...]

Accretive Financing: Disney’s Deal to Buy the Ducks

How You can End up with More Cash on Hand after a Deal Than Before How the Disney Company Ended up Buying the Ducks from the National League for a Negative Amount of Cash I have been involved in more than 168 startups over the last 25 years—either as a principal or as an advisor. [...]

Bootstrapping Your Own ETA Business

(Executive Travel Apartments Are Not Subject to RTA, Residential Tenancy Agreement) (Reducing Capital Requirements for Startups) A former student recently introduced me a new form of Bootstrap Capital, or at least, one I hadn’t considered before. It seems obvious to me now but I think it takes some creativity to apply it to any business [...]

Main Sources of Capital for Startups

Is lack of access to capital really the main barrier to entry for most entrepreneurs? I believe that a stated lack of access to capital by many would-be entrepreneurs is more of an excuse than anything else. There is lots of funding around for passionate entrepreneurs who can execute on a good biz model. Here [...]

Raising Capital by ‘Issuing’ Script

(Plus Tapping Sponsors/Co-Branders/Strategic Investors and Partners for Free Capital) There’s nothing new about raising money by issuing script. The Reynolds Brothers ran a sawmill (established in 1870 by Orson L. Reynolds) in the Adirondacks that in addition to central logging and operating their mill also ran a company store and developed other sources of income [...]

Entrepreneurs Handbook II: Foreword

(Here is the Foreword to Entrepreneurs Handbook II, coming out in March 2012. Stay tuned.) Do you want to learn how to create significant value for yourself and your family in an enterprise that you own and control—value that can provide you the freedom and security to realize your lifetime goals? Then read this Handbook [...]